


YNWA & Other Annoying Scouse Habits

by blindbatalex



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Angst and Humor, Communication is hard, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Humor, Gary is a Grinch, Jamie is annoying, Light Whump, M/M, Steven Gerrard - Freeform, a cameo by, feelings are harder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28030050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: He is singing to himself, his voice only just loud enough to be heard over the sizzling of the pan.  It’s that song.  It’s always that bloody song.Or, 5 times Jamie sang YNWA and annoyed Gary, and one time somebody else sang it.
Relationships: Jamie Carragher/Gary Neville
Comments: 28
Kudos: 53





	1. The First Time(?)

There is a first time for everything, the old adage goes. 

Gary hates this adage. There are loads of things for which there is no first time, and rightfully so. For example, Gary has never in his life killed anyone, even if more than one person he crossed paths with deserved it, he has never let failure stop him, even when the going got rough, he has never sang _You’ll Never Walk Alone_ , even when he was drunk or delirious, and he never intends to do any one of these things until his dying day.

With that last one though, he has unfortunately heard others sing it, many times. Entirely too many times, in fact. In the national team locker room and on TV, on the street, all around them like a hellish choir when they played at Anfield. Most recently at the studio.

He is also pretty sure he has heard Carragher sing it before. He must have. The bloody tune festers among his people like a disease, and he has known Carragher, in some capacity or the other, for some twenty years. The man must have been the culprit in one of those times Gary heard it being sung at the national team.

Except- as he opens the door to the lounge, and as his skin crawls and his face twists with disgust before he even knows why, and as he finds Carragher humming the melody under his breath, he thinks- _huh_.

As if this is the first time.

Carragher is humming the notes in his off-key, ugly Scouse voice, from where he is sat on the sofa. Printouts, a dormant iPad, an empty coffee cup litter the space around him, on the cushions and on the coffee table, and he is oblivious to all of them, including the paper he is holding in his hands. His eyes are closed. He is humming the bloody melody under his breath, and he is lightyears away.

Gary wants to kick him in the shin. 

Yes, yes, the last season before you retire and the first one after it are the hardest, but does he not realise the uncomfortable spot this puts Gary in? How awkward it is to run into an acquaintance having a moment? No manners in these Scousers, whatsoever.

“Carragher.”

Carragher startles visibly. He opens his eyes, his blue-grey eyes, and for a moment this bewildered look flashes across them, the kind you would give to an imam at a church or a Manchester United captain in a Melwood shower. 

He shakes his head and it’s gone.

“Sleeping on the job, were you?”

“Must have dozed off while waiting for you to grace us with your presence,” Carragher replies easily.

“Not my fault I hit traffic.”

“It never is!”

Gary smiles, almost. They would have been friends in another life. He crosses the room to sit on the other sofa so that they can start working.

*

“Neville,” Carragher says when they are done for the day and wrapped up in their coats, ready to leave.

Gary stops fiddling with his scarf and turns to him.

“Yeah?”

Carragher reminds him of what he used to be like a few years ago. The season before you retire and the season right after are the hardest. A perpetual twilight covers the football pitches, what you are told is still your home, studios, the streets. And you wander through all of these places, haunt these places, like a ghost stuck in between this world and the next, even as you play and give interviews and grab your new life by the horns, belonging to neither realm. 

Carragher looks at him, searching his face. His gaze is sharp and he is smarter than he looks—certainly smarter than Gary gave him credit for in their playing days. Gary soldiers on through the uncomfortable seconds they spend standing and staring—he is a good person despite the rumours to the contrary—but in the end all Carragher does is to clear his throat and offer a “good night.”

“To you too,” Gary replies, and with a polite smile heads out, not bothering to wait for Carragher to join him.


	2. The Cosmic Joke

The second time, Gary thinks God is playing some sort of cosmic joke on him. 

You see, he has to go to London to cover the North London derby and trains have been cancelled due to an unexpected issue with the tracks. He would drive instead, except, he twisted his ankle last week in a kickabout with his mates. So when Carra—who also needs to get to London and whose train is likewise out of service—texts him and offers to drive, Gary lets his rage and his folly blind him and says yes.

Not that he hates Carra. It’s just- well, for starters, Carra huffs and rolls his eyes when Gary beckons for him to come inside because he is not ready just yet.

“This is _un_ -believable,” Carra says, shaking his head, “you had more than _an hour_ to get ready.”

He is wearing dark jeans and a grey jumper over a white shirt, which matches the dull Manchester skies. It should wash him out by all means—what a dreadful colour choice—but doesn’t look half bad. Strike what he said earlier—Gary does hate him.

He points to his crutch.

“Not my fault I’m injured!”

Truth be told, he meant to answer a single email and then lost track of time until fifteen minutes ago, but Carra doesn’t need to know that.

“Besides,” he adds, as they make their way inside, “it’s not as if I want you in my house. I will have to disinfect the whole area when I get back.”

Things retirement does to you. Even the thought of a Liverpool player in his living room would have made Gary throw up a few years ago. Now, he will probably only open the windows to air out the place for an hour when he gets back, despite what he said. 

Carra makes a face.

“I will have to disinfect myself.”

Gary leaves him there, looking delightfully grumpy and scanning the room as if to discern where the booby traps are laid, and hops back into the bathroom to style his hair.

*

“You aren’t planning to wear this tie with that suit, are you?” comes the insufferable voice following a precious couple of minutes of peace. Gary hops to the ajar door to find Carra now standing in his bedroom and holding the tie Gary is going to wear.

His bedroom. Carra is standing there right next to his bed. The living room is one thing but this is entirely too much. Gary wishes he had an actual landmine or booby trap set up in the hallway—or at least a way to wipe his brain of this memory, which will no doubt haunt him for the rest of his life.

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

It’s a lovely solid dark blue tie that and a good match for his suit, thank you very much. 

“Right.”

Gary clenches his jaw. He should know better than to indulge this nonsense.

“What’s wrong with it, then.”

“Hmm,” Carra replies, cocking his head to the side, “nothing,” in a way that says _‘everything’_. 

“Good then!”

Gary closes the bathroom door shut. After all, to show any sign that Carra got under his skin is to let the bastard win. He is not here to play games.

*

When he comes out of the bathroom, his bedroom is thankfully Scouser-free, but his blue tie has been replaced by a deep burgundy one with a pin dot pattern on the bed. 

“Did you go into my closet?” Gary calls, hobbling into the living room holding the evidence forth in his free hand. “Now I have to clean the hallway, living room, bedroom, _and_ the closet. That’s practically half the house.”

Carra looks up from the sofa, where he looks perfectly at home, buried into the cushions with that bloody jumper that matches his eyes and his feet up on the coffee table. 

He grins.

“I licked all of your glasses and plates too!”

“You bastard.” Gary pokes him with his crutch, to signal he is ready to go. He realises too late, far, far too late, that he kept the tie Carra picked for him in the rush rather than going to his closet and switching it back like he intended to do.

*

But if you think this is bad, it is nothing compared to startling awake from a nightmare only to find Carra playing an Elvis cover of _You’ll Never Walk Alone_ and singing along to it a couple of hours later.

“For fuck’s sake.” 

His heart still beating fast from the bone-chilling visions the song had conjured in his dream, Gary reaches to turn the bloody thing off. But Carra is too quick—he swats at Gary’s hand before he is able to.

“Hey, my car, my music,” he says, before he joins Elvis again. _At the end of the storm, there’s a goooolden sky-_

Gary battles Carra’s hand to get to the power button. His brain is melting in his skull and is about to come out of his ears. A thousand nails are dragging down a board in unison. Carra doesn’t let go.

“ _Turn it off_ or-”

“Or what?”

The bastard is grinning. Gary digs his nails into Carra’s skin but Carra manoeuvres out of the way to slap his hand.

_I am going to open the door and throw myself out of this car,_ Gary thinks. 

But on balance, that would probably be a win for the wanker. So Gary thinks on his feet.

“U-N-I T-E-D, United are the team for me!” he starts to sing instead, loud enough to drown out the combined powers of Presley-Carragher. After all, two can play at this game.

Carra makes a surprised, strangled, outraged sound at the back of his throat, and tries to turn the volume up. But he is distracted, and Gary finally manages to whack his hand out of the way and turn the music off, still singing. Finally.

“Oh, is that so?”

Carra is proper angry now, which is just delicious.

Except then he starts singing, “ _oh come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. Oh come ye oh come ye, to A-anfield,_ ” at the top of his lungs.

Never one to be outdone—least of all by a Liverpudlian—Gary raises his own voice to match Carra’s and switches to _Glory Glory Man United_ for good measure. Carra switches to _Who the Fuck Are Man United?_ in turn and Gary decides to treat this like an away game at Anfield. 

It is _on_ and he can yell.

Carra meanwhile has somehow managed to raise his voice even more and is now simply screaming _Liiiiiiiiverpooooool, Liiiiiiverpoooool_!! when-

“Watch out-!”

The car in front of them has come to a stop. Carra slams on the breaks and the car screeches. They were going fast. The impact throws both of them forward, only to be caught by their seat belts, and with mere centimetres between them and the other car, they finally come to a stop.

Gary looks at Carra, heart hammering in his chest, his skin smarting where the seatbelt dug in. Carra looks just as scared.

“Fuck.”

“You are the one-” Gary starts, on instinct but- 

Around them, the traffic seems to come to a standstill. Is it an accident? Roadwork? He takes in a deep breath. Did they, two middle-aged men, nearly crash the car because they were caught up in a screaming match of their respective club songs? Really? And what if someone had gotten hurt?

“Fuck,” Carra says again, and he is right. _Fuck._

They move forward a meter or two before the car stops with the traffic again. The asphalt is slick with drizzle and the grey skies look like a miserable wet blanket that has been thrown over everything. 

“We had it right in our playing days,” Gary says, trying to convince his heart to settle back in his chest.

“Our people aren’t meant to be friends,” Carra agrees.

“We aren’t friends.”

“Never said we were.”

Gary is looking away—looking outside—but Carra glances at him, just for a moment, he thinks.

He picks up his travel-sized pillow from the floor and dusts it off. If traffic doesn’t start flowing again they are going to be stuck here for a long, long time. Better go back to sleep.

*

“You need to get more rest,” Carra opines, just as he has closed his eyes.

“I get plenty.”

“Right—and that’s why you doze off the moment you set foot in a moving vehicle of any sort.”

“Have you considered I might be pretending to sleep so as to avoid your sorry face?”

In truth, it is because time spent on transportation is as inevitable as it is wasted. It makes sense to make best use of those precious morning hours and catch up on sleep when he inevitably finds himself on a train or a car. Carra isn’t his mum however, so.

“And you pretend to snore also?”

“I do _not_ snore.”

Carra snickers, and Gary is going to kill him the moment they get out of this car. 

*

“I had a nightmare because of you, you know.”

“You flatter, Gary.”

“Idiot.”

He really is. But sleep is creeping up on Gary like a warm summer afternoon, making him feel lighter, making it hard to hold onto righteous rage.

“What were you dreaming about?”

“I was at Anfield. I was playing against- _you_. But. There were eleven of you.”

Carra laughs, loud and open. 

“A team of Carraghers. I see how that would be terrifying.” 

“Except unlike in real life, you knew how to play football in my dream-”

“Ouch-”

“And I was- I couldn’t move.”

He knew he had to stop Liverpool from scoring but he could only move in slow motion, and when he tried to pass the ball, his teammate turned into Carra just as the ball left his feet and _You’ll Never Walk Alone_ played in deafening volume in the stadium.

“I have nightmares like that sometimes,” Carra says, or perhaps Gary imagines him say it. He will reach that conclusion when he thinks about it later, when they are in London and he is awake. After all, what reason would Carra have to tell him all this.

“ _I’m at Anfield and the Kop is singing and I- I know what I need to do but I can’t do it. Can’t block the cross, can’t defend. All I can do is watch the other team score, knowing it’s my fault._ ”

Gary has the same recurring dream, except in his case, it’s set in Old Trafford. Sometimes he is too slow, sometimes he is naked; sometimes he scores only to realise it’s at the wrong goal. But the shame, the sense of helplessness is always the same. It clings to his skin like grease, and he always wakes up in a sweat, panting. 

And he still prefers it a thousand times over to the other recurring dream he has.

Trafford End is singing in that one. It’s night but you wouldn’t know it standing under the floodlights. Becks is there, and he is young, he can’t be older than twenty; and he is made of gold. 

Gary runs. The ball is at his feet, the wind on his face, and he is fast. He is as fast as the wind. 

“Over here, Gaz!” Becks calls to him. Sometimes it’s Paul. Gary cross the ball. He knows it is going to be a goal before the it even leaves his feet; there is no way Becks would miss that.

He doesn’t. Becks’ hair, his smile, is made of gold. He fits so perfectly in Gary’s arms and the crowd sings and sings.

Gary wakes up smiling every time, before he remembers where he is, who he is.

He will hope later on, when they are in London and he is awake, that he did not utter a word of this to Carra while he was falling asleep.

He hasn’t uttered a word of it to anyone after all. He doesn’t believe in self-pity. He doesn’t believe in dwelling on the past, and he and Carra are not friends.


	3. The Beginning of the End

There are two established traditions to Monday Night Football. One is the post-show drinks. The other is the pre-show workout. 

Both were there long before Jamie’s time. Neither are a threat. 

If Gary has come to see a different side of Jamie in their post-show drinks, it has simply helped him bond with a co-worker. Anyone with semi-decent management skills will tell you people work much better together when they can connect on a personal level. As for the pre-show workout? Gary spent three decades of his life existing around sweaty, muscular men in various stages of undress. They didn’t even always have individual stalls. No—time was they would all shower together, naked body next to naked body, and be not even fazed by it. Working out with Jamie is nothing in comparison.

Except Jamie is singing in the shower. 

He called it quits some three minutes before Gary and his voice now carries over the sound of running water. It’s that bloody song—it’s always that same bloody song. _Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone._ His voice is muffled but deep and something about it makes Gary stop, towel wrapped around his waist. 

Jamie is singing on the other side of this curtain and he is naked. 

Perhaps his eyes are closed as he lathers his hair and as water runs down his skin in rivulets. The water would momentarily get caught in the tufts of hair on his chest, before it frees itself again and caresses his toned abs, his thighs, in a gentle kiss on its way to the floor. And how he would blossom under a touch less gentle, a hand running on his glistening skin, drawing a shiver in its wake, perhaps a needy moan from those lips that never know how to shut up and be still. How his cock would come to life with a hand—Gary’s hand—wrapped around it.

Gary shakes his head.

The problem is this is not the first time he caught his mind wandering to such thoughts, and like Kaiju attacks in that Pacific Rim film his niece made him watch, they have been happening with increasing frequency. 

Lately, he has caught himself thinking about things such as the sounds Jamie would make at the back of his throat, the smack of his lips as his tongue runs over them, his hands—his unfortunately large and strong hands—roaming his body. And now, this. Christ.

He walks into the farthest shower stall, and turns the water as cold as it goes to kill the more stubborn musings of his mind. 

But he has never been one to run away from his fears. And this—this unnatural attraction, desire, whatever you want to call it—it’s simply a by-product of years of rivalry. No one told Gary this at the time, but, if you spend two decades hating a football club and its few ever-present faces with a passion, and if one of those faces is not grotesque to look at and listen to, and ends up working next to you for years- well. 

It is only natural for all of that pent-up tension to grow and multiply like mould in such an environment, and to get past it, Gary must allow himself the release his body so desperately craves. 

Yes. 

He turns off the water. 

He will sleep with Jamie, just the once, just to make this stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uniform chapter lengths? I don't know her


	4. Would Rather Not Think About This One

_“James.”_

It is a sound more than a word, mushed together by a tongue that is not yet awake, as Gary turns in bed in search for some warmth—his warmth—and wraps his arm around his middle. _Jaam’s._ His James.

The light is in Gary’s eyes, however—who turned it on?—so he moves his hand to shield them, and hits what is definitely a pillow on the way with no head resting on it. 

With a groan he opens his eyes, and finds himself alone in bed; what he hugged is no more than Jamie’s side of the duvet bunched up, and worse, it is morning. Not the wonderful early morning which he normally wakes up to, with dawn only just beginning to break outside and the houses, the people around him still asleep. No—the sun is high in the sky and when he looks his mobile informs him it’s almost 8am. He groans again. What on earth-?

As he rolls out of bed, he puts a hand on his forehead—last time he slept in this late he was running a horrible fever—but he doesn’t feel particularly warm. Eleven Liverpool players stare at him malevolently from the framed picture on the wall. “Yeah, yeah,” Gary tells them, “I know you don’t approve.” They never have, the judgemental bastards. 

He stretches his arms. 

He doesn’t feel sick at all, truth be told. He just feels…well-rested, with that sweet tinge of soreness in his muscles that follows a night of good sex.

Not used to being left on its own for this long, his stomach grumbles unhappily. A wonderful smell is making its way up from downstairs. Gary gets dressed quickly. He follows his nose into the kitchen and-

There Jamie is, in front of the stove, grilling bacon. He is wearing a pair of red pyjama pants with little reindeer prints on them, a cream coloured t-shirt that accentuates his broad shoulders. He is barefoot. He is singing to himself, his voice only just loud enough to be heard over the sizzling of the pan. It’s that song. It’s always that bloody song. _Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown._

He turns around.

“There is our sleeping beauty!”

His smile is entirely too self-satisfied. His hair is still damp from a shower—did Gary really sleep through that?—the stubble he is yet to shave more grey than black these days. 

“Hey, it’s not even 8am yet,” Gary points out.

Smiling even more, Jamie surges forward to press a quick kiss on his lips and puts his inner wrist against Gary’s forehead.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s practically noon by your standards—wanted to make sure you didn’t have a fever.”

Gary does his best to duck away from the touch, the soft warmth of Jamie’s touch on his forehead. 

This was supposed to be a one-time thing. 

How confident he was of that when he showed up at Jamie’s hotel room that night and walked in like he owned the place.

 _What are you doing?_ Jamie had asked, following after him.

Gary sat on the edge of the bed. _Make three guesses._ The trick was—is—to never give yourself away. To never let on how nervous you feel.

Jamie eyed him, like he used to when he first started at the studio. With mistrust. Searching Gary’s face for a trap. 

_You are out of toothpaste and came to abuse my good nature and hospitality?_

Gary shook his head, and not breaking eye contact, undid the top button of his shirt.

_No. Guess again._

Jamie’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed, but he didn’t look away either. His arms were crossed at his chest and it only served to highlight how strong they were, how well-built. He sat on the bed next to Gary. 

_You saw sense and wanted to apologise for saying Scholes was a better midfielder than Gerrard?_

Gary’s skin felt so tight it might tear at any moment.

 _Wrong again._ Jamie’s eyes. In another life, he would have fallen in love with them. _Last chance._

Jamie leaned in then, and Gary met him halfway, snaking a hand behind Jamie’s neck. He was a good kisser and this was a one-time thing. A release for all the pent-up tension.

It was supposed to be a one-time thing.

Jamie lets him go and turns back to the stove and to the anthem of his people. _Walk on through the rain._

“You are making breakfast,” Gary says.

“And I am almost done.”

He is smiling, Gary can tell, even though he can’t see his face. He has already brewed coffee; slices of bread are in the toaster, ready to be pushed down. He is singing and he is barefoot and the hickey Gary sucked into his skin—to banish him to turtlenecks and scarfs for a week just because he could, because Jamie was too far gone to push him away—is visible on his neck.

“I should go,” Gary says.

“Oh, come on,” Jamie does not turn around. “Since when do you refuse free food?”

“Well, you _are_ singing that song.”

Jamie takes the pan off the heat, and now facing Gary, cracks a grin.

“You’ll Never Walk Alone? You can sing it with me!”

Gary makes a face. “I would rather die a slow and painful death, thank you very much.”

“ _Fine_.” He rolls his eyes and starts to hum _In My Life_ instead.

“I have a meeting.”

Jamie crosses his arms at his chest.

“I have seen you scarf down a meal in five minutes. Food is almost ready—you will be out the door in ten.”

“James-” Jamie flinches at the name, though he does his best not to show it. “-I am already late.”

He has no meeting. He would have been up at 5.30 and out the door if he had one. He thinks Jamie knows this too. They just- it’s fine that this started as a one-time affair and turned into this… _arrangement_ that they have but they don’t do breakfast. Jamie knows that too.

“Right. Suit yourself, then.” Jamie turns his back to him, and transfers the bacon from the pan to a plate.

 _Jamie_ , Gary wants to say but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what he would say next. So he just picks up his keys from the little colourful ceramic bowl Jamie says he bought in Istanbul and walks to his car. 

The front gates are open long before he reaches them.


	5. Would Absolutely Rather Not Think About This One, Preferably Until Dying Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be excommunicated from my team's fanbase...for good this time ✌️

Gary finishes brushing his teeth. His mobile is buzzing in his pocket but he has no time to deal with it right now. He quickly dries his mouth, fixes his hair with his fingers, and adjusts his tie. If Jamie were here, he would shake his head and say “really Gary? Late even now?” And he would have a point – Gary has been courting this foreign investor for a new property development project for the past week, and he will seal the deal tonight at dinner. He absolutely cannot be late. 

He stares at himself in the mirror. The lighting in this bathroom is atrocious; it casts everything a blueish, pale hue, which is not great when you are less than handsome to begin with. But it will have to do for now. 

_Get bathroom lights fixed_ , he adds to his running mental to-do list as he walks out, and fishes out his mobile to see who was trying to reach him.

The caller ID makes him stop in his tracks, in the middle of the hallway.

_Steven Gerrard._

Worse, the missed call is followed by a single text – _Call me when you have a minute. It’s important._

Gary peels his eyes away from the screen. Last time Gerrard called him was- actually, Gary isn’t sure Gerrard ever called him since he got a mobile in the late 90s. He walks into his office. He closes the blinds on the glass wall facing the hallway and sits down in his chair.

Their office is on the 15th floor, overlooking the city, and Manchester is a beast made of brick and metal and shimmering light under his feet, moving to its own rhythm in the dark.

Gerrard could be calling to coordinate a surprise birthday party for Jamie, never mind that it’s months away. He might be terribly offended by Gary’s recent criticism of Liverpool and calling to give Gary a piece of his mind. He might have found out about the two of them and calling to give Gary the shovel talk – _treat my Jamie right, or else._

Gary hits redial. He could be.

*

“I’m calling about Jamie,” Gerrard says, after the most bare-bone of pleasantries. 

His voice is calm but playing at the top level for years and years and being forced to give interviews even after the most crushing defeat gives you that ability even in the most dire of situations. 

“Is Jamie-?”

Gary’s mouth is dry and he can hear background noises at Gerrard’s end. Is he at a-

“He is fine. He is not in any danger.”

 _He is fine._ Thank God.

“What happened?” But he can barely hear his own voice. 

_Quiet you_ , he tells his heart, the culprit, pounding away in his ribcage like there is no tomorrow. _Didn’t you hear? He’s not dead._

There is still the fact that Gerrard is calling him and from what very much so sounds like a hospital, however. Someone is paging a Dr Lisbon to the OR. The man might be using the word ‘fine’ a little liberally.

“He was uh- helping an elderly neighbour put Christmas lights on her house, when he slipped and fell-”

Christ.

“What was he doing that for?”

Gerrard sucks in an audible breath. “Because he is a good person?” he says in a way that strongly implies Gary is _not_ a good person. That’s the problem with these Liverpool men—and Becks was the same in his youth. They would rather gallantly climb roofs than let trained professionals deal with things. But, much more importantly right now-

“How badly did he get hurt?”

“He has a concussion. Sprained his neck. He was quite lucky considering, but he broke his leg badly enough to require emergency surgery. Compound fracture. But it went well and with some physical therapy he will be good as new.”

“You said he was _fine_ -” 

Even in a liberal use of the word, how does any of that sound like Jamie being fine? 

“You know, Jamie was right about you,” Gerrard replies, and Gary gets the sense that whatever Jamie said about him it wasn’t a nomination for the best boyfriend of the year award. Not that Gary is his boyfriend. Just- the nerve of the bastard, scaling roofs and slandering Gary behind his back.

But he bites his lip and stays quiet because Gerrard is clearly not done yet.

“Is there uh- any chance you can stop by the hospital tonight?” Gerrard asks. Gary never did like the man and he is nowhere near as good as Scholes, for the record—he never was. “He’s not quite with it right now and he has been asking for you. I tried to talk sense into him but he is rather insistent.”

And Gary is going to break something. Preferably Gerrard’s leg. Who the fuck does Gerrard think he is, to even pose it as a question?

“What hospital?” he asks, instead, calmly enough to deserve a medal. “I will be there in an hour and a half.”

*

Gary doesn’t like hospitals. To be fair, he doesn’t think anyone steps into one, takes a deep breath and goes, “ah the fresh smell of antiseptic, what a wonderful place to be,’ including the medics who work there.

 _He is fine_ , he tells himself. The idiot is fine.

When he manages to find the right ward and the right room, Jamie looks a bit worse for wear. His left leg is suspended in the air in a contraption and is in a soft cast until a little above the knee. What appears to be a full roll of bandage is wrapped around his thick head. He is wearing a neck brace and his eyes light up when he sees Gary.

“Gary! You came!”

Gary smiles despite himself. You would think he hadn’t seen Gary in a decade from the enthusiasm in his voice. 

The other residents of the room are visibly less excited to see him. Gerrard gives him a nod from his chair in the corner. Who must be Jamie’s mum and…one of his brothers judging from facial likeness stand up from the sofa and declare they will go get a cup of tea, but not before fixing Gary with a disapproving glare. 

“Didn’t come here for you,” Gary tells Jamie when the two of them have left, dragging a chair to his bedside. “I came to grab a beer with Stevie.”

“Oh.”

Jamie looks away and his smile trembles. He looks like a kicked puppy trying to keep up a brave face and looks approximately five seconds from crying. What drugs do they have him on?

Gary rolls his eyes and takes Jamie’s hand between both of his.

“Hey, I was joking, right? Obviously I came for you. Fuck Gerrard.” He briefly glares at Gerrard’s direction. “I would have come a lot sooner had I known…”

This only occurred to him after he hung up the phone, but Jamie must have gotten hurt in the afternoon at the latest. And the bastard wouldn’t even have called Gary if Jamie didn’t insist. To think that Jamie was hurt and hours passed before he even knew- they will have to have a word later.

“I’m glad.” Jamie squeezes his hand and resumes smiling just as brightly as before.

Gary shoots Gerrard another look. But the man’s eyes are glued to his mobile, so he leans in and caresses Jamie’s cheek with his thumb. Bloody idiot. The leg alone is going to hurt like a bitch when the painkillers wear off and PT will be a nightmare. His daft knight in shining armour.

“How are you feeling? Are you in pain?”

Jamie shakes his head. 

“But it’s hard to think.”

“That’s okay. You can think later.” 

Jamie nods, captivated as if Gary offered a piece of exceptionally wise advice. His stubble is rough against Gary’s finger and his eyes are wide. Beautiful. His eyes are so beautiful even when slightly unfocused like this.

“Will you sing for me?”

Huh-? Jamie wants him to-?

David had asked that question once, when he had food poisoning and felt absolutely miserable, wrapped in Gary’s arms in bed.

Gary shakes his head to dispel the memory.

It’s not as if he can say no. Not in Jamie’s current state.

“ _Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you-_ ” he starts.

But Jamie doesn’t let him get any further.

“No.”

Gary laughs. David had also groaned and shushed him after a mere ten seconds, saying he was making it worse. It’s hardly his fault he wasn’t blessed with a golden voice.

“Not that song,” Jamie adds, his brow creased in a frown like he is trying to concentrate. So he does want to hear Gary sing? He’d said he liked Oasis—called it ‘the one tolerable thing to come out of Manchester’—but perhaps not when he is injured?

“Would you like me to sing something by the Beatles?”

But Jamie shakes his head, still frowning, before his face lights up with another smile. 

“Sing _You’ll Never Walk Alone._ ”

“Jamie-” It would have been one thing if Jamie was dying, but he is not, and there are some lines you do not cross, no matter how much you care about a person. No one, including Gary, could have expected Jamie to sing _Glory Glory Man United_ if their places were switched. “Perhaps Stevie can sing it?” 

He silently pleads with Gerrard, who does one thing right in his life and comes to his rescue.

“Do you want me to sing it for you, Jamie?”

But Jamie shakes his head again. His eyes are glued onto Gary and he looks so horribly eager, so…trusting. “You sing it. Please?”

Gary rubs at the bridge of his nose. What on earth is he supposed to say or do in response to that? The last thing he wants to do is to hurt Jamie, especially in this pathetic state of his but- His stomach turns even at the thought.

Jamie takes this to be his answer.

“That’s alright,” he says, slowly, sadly, “you don’t need to.” He frees his hand from Gary’s, and worries with the edge of the blanket. He won’t look at Gary and he looks so heartbroken you’d think Gary took his dog and shot it in front of his eyes. 

Gary hates him with every fibre of his being. Damn him and his bloody team. Damn the elderly neighbour who is no doubt a terrible person behind her ‘I’m-so-old-and-frail’ act. If she can afford to live in Jamie’s neighbourhood, she can surely afford to call a contractor.

He turns to Gerrard. “Breathe one word of this to another living soul and I will do unspeakable things to you. Got that?”

The twat nods, but he has to cover his mouth with his hand to hide a smile.

Gary could still leave. 

Jamie’s family will return soon and they will likely succeed in distracting him alongside Gerrard. He is not dying and he will likely not even remember tonight in a couple of days’ time. This is madness.

He opens his mouth. No sounds come out. The song doesn’t belong to Liverpool FC, he reminds himself. It was originally from a musical. Other teams like Celtic and Borussia Dortmund sing it too. 

He covers Jamie’s hand with his own. He glares at Gerrard one more time for good measure, and then closes his eyes.

He takes in a deep breath.

“ _When you walk through a storm,_ ” he starts softly, ignoring the churning of his stomach. “ _Hold your head up high. And don’t be afraid of the dark-_ ”

*

When he opens his eyes mid-way through the song, he finds Jamie’s eyes glued to him, like they were before. He is holding his hand so tight, as if it’s a lifeline, he might well leave a bruise. And he is looking at Gary, staring at Gary, with so much open adoration and awe- Gary closes his eyes and swallows.

He will never think of tonight again, preferably until his dying day.


	6. The Disaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas friends!

“Gary Neville here on time? Must be a Christmas miracle.”

Gary hears his callout before he sees Jamie, there to the side of the hallway, standing next to Kelly.

“For fuck’s sake…just when we finally had some peace and quiet around here,” he says as he walks over, doing his best to sound put off. But Jamie is grinning at him like a madman.

Today is his first game back—Manchester City vs. Liverpool.

“That’s a funny way of saying you missed me,” he counters easily, and he looks good. His leg is still in a cast so he still needs crutches but he is free of the neck brace and seems sharp and at home in his three-piece suit.

“I did not.”

“You did so.”

Most of the time, the Etihad feels stagnant, deadening—even on the day of big matches—but something has been buzzing under Gary’s skin, today, as if perhaps a bee has been trapped in his ribcage, and it seems to echo in the hallways of the stadium, never mind that there are hours until kick-off.

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes. “But only because everyone else around here is so insufferable. Except for Kelly, of course.”

“Of course,” Kelly agrees with good-natured cheer, which, frankly anyone who works with the two of them needs to possess in large quantities. She turns to leave, saying she will let the two of them catch up.

“I missed you too,” Jamie admits as she walks away, “but only because-”

“-Gerrard is insufferable?”

“Oi, you take that back!” Jamie smacks his shin with his crutch. Like clockwork—insult one of them and the other whacks you with the nearest sharp object. It would almost be sweet if it wasn’t so obnoxious. “Besides, he didn’t stay over for that many nights.”

They haven’t left Jamie alone in this past month, his family and friends. Someone has been staying over at his place every night, leaving no opportunity for a booty call. At this point, Gary could take him right here and now, shove him into a supply closet, the match and their clothes be damned. Just to run his hands on the lapels of that suit alone, to undo the buttons of his vest one by one-

He looks away and raises his hands in surrender. That way lies, if not madness, then certainly an erection, and Gary would rather not make tabloid headlines.

“I offer my humble apologies.”

“As you should.”

They stand there for a second, unable to move and not sure what to say. Words are clattering into one another like bumper cars in Gary’s throat, and he doesn’t get flustered – not like this.

“What midfield formation do you think Klopp will go with?” he manages to ask, finally, and starts towards the pitch, Jamie following right after him.

*

And it’s all going well, really—they are enjoying each other’s company and a relatively comfortable silence while they walk slowly—that is, until Jamie starts humming. 

Jamie starts humming and the contents of Gary’s stomach threaten to reacquaint themselves with his mouth. Of every song he could pick-

“I take it back,” he says. “I did not miss you one bit!”

Jamie glances at him and his eyes are practically glowing with mischief now, and a terrible, evil sneer stretches across his mouth. Oh no.

“I don’t know what you mean.” He points first to Gary and then to himself. “It’s a big day for Liverpool fans like you and me.”

“Oh dear,” Gary replies and the trick is to appear more confident than you feel; to never let on how nervous you are. “I was told you didn’t have any permanent brain damage...” 

“I don’t.” Jamie stops and turns to him. This is how Gary imagined he would look if Liverpool ever manages to win the league again in their lifetime. Like a right twat. “It’s just when you sing _You’ll Never Walk Alone_ with two Liverpool fans, well that’s your Confirmation into the club, isn’t it?”

Bollocks.

On that terrible day in the hospital, when he reached the ‘walk on’ bit, they had joined him, Jamie and Gerrard. Gary would have been mad at them—he was mad at them—but he also wasn’t sure they could help themselves. So they sang together and Pavlov would have had a field day if he was there with them in that room and that was that. 

But Jamie never mentioned the incident in their texts and video calls over the past month, and Gary dared hope that perhaps God was kind and he did not remember. 

He looks Jamie square in the eye.

“Two Liverpool fans-? I am afraid you are imagining things—I haven’t a clue what you are talking about.”

Is it moral to gaslight your…co-worker? Perhaps not. But gaslight Jamie Gary will, if it means salvaging his dignity—or, whatever is left of it.

But Jamie presses on with no mercy.

“Come now, there is no reason to be ashamed.” He would have made a fine torturer in another life, perhaps under the Spanish Inquisition. “You’ve come to recognise that ours is the superior club, which takes guts when you have been brainwa-”

Gary cuts him off.

“Look, I don’t know what you think you remember but you are embarrassing yourself, really.”

He doesn’t want to think about that night, about his betrayal or Jamie’s eyes, so painfully earnest and wide. He wishes Jamie would just… _stop_.

Jamie does no such thing.

“I am, am I?” 

He extends his hand, palm up, and on it is an AirPod. When did he take that out and- is that his mobile in his other hand?

He looks at Jamie, who stares right back at him. He takes the cursed object with shaky hands. Perhaps God is kind. He puts it in. Perhaps there is hope. Another explanation. 

But Jamie taps his screen and-

Fuck.

Gary takes the bloody AirPod out as if it is burning his ear.

Gerrard was promised to secrecy, and the bastard recorded him. How many other people, former Liverpool players, have they sent this to? How many times have they listened to it and laughed and laughed?

“That has _nothing_ to do with Liverpool,” he spits out. Jamie knows that just as well.

But the bastard only grins wider. 

“No? Well, you must really love me then, to sing it for me.” 

“I-” 

There is a beat. 

Gary says, “you looked pitiful and it was between that and making you cry,” but not soon enough. No, there is a beat and he looks at Jamie, his mouth open, his mouth dry, and in that half a second, his real answer rings loud and clear in the hallway.

Jamie’s eyes grow wide until they are almost perfect circles.

Bollocks.


	7. Communication Has Never Been Our Strong Suit

“Alright, will you stop staring at me like I have grown a second head?”

The game has ended with a 2-1 Liverpool victory. They have done their post-game analysis and hung around with the guys after the cameras have stopped rolling—everyone wanted a piece of Jamie and it is best to let traffic clear. No one asked Jamie how he was getting back to Liverpool. There has to be rumours going on behind their back in the studio—God knows enough is going around in the tabloids, but no one has asked them directly what their involvement is—as if afraid of the answer they might get.

They are in Gary’s car and street lights are gliding past them outside, reflected on the wet asphalt and in puddles.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I am talking about. All afternoon it’s been going on and I’ve had enough.”

“Hmm.” Jamie looks out the window. He has been giving him these looks, as they walked to pitch-side, as they were getting miked up, while they were waiting for the broadcast to start. Up in the gantry, when there was a stop in play. Couple of times Gary felt Jamie’s gaze boring a hole into his skin and caught him red-handed, staring at him, only for Jamie to look away.

“Is it really that surprising? That I… _care_ about you?”

He hasn’t even said it out loud, and it’s enough still, apparently, to cause Jamie a mini-meltdown. He must have…had an inkling to not to embarrass himself like this if he listened to the recording before. Does he think Gary would go around throwing his morals under the bus for any pitiful Scouser high on opioids?

“You were courting that Chinese investor for your new development project.” Jamie says. “How did it turn out?”

Gary frowns.

“Didn’t work out.”

“You were supposed to have dinner with him the day I fell off the roof.” 

Jamie’s voice is measured but the accusation there is hard to miss. 

Of course.

“I- look.” Gary does his best to keep his voice measured. “I wouldn’t expect you to do anything, right, if our roles were reversed – so you can stop being weird about it.”

He doesn’t. He didn’t cancel his dinner plans or sing that bloody song with the expectation of some sort of return. 

“So you… ‘care about me’ and you will have me out the door tomorrow before I can have a sip of coffee.”

“Coffee-? Why are you still hung up about that?”

It has been _weeks_. Sue him for not apologising for skipping out on some breakfast once.

“It has nothing to do with coffee.” 

“Christ,” Gary sighs. You made little enough sense as is and now whatever is left of your brain is completely fried!”

They stop at a red light and a woman crosses the street, pushing a pram into the wind and the drizzle, her head bowed down and her raincoat billowing after her like a cape. 

“Stevie told me you threw up after you finished singing.”

What does he want Gary to say? He sat there by the bed until Jamie had dozed off and then he pulled himself into the nearest toilets in the hallway and threw up. Obviously he threw up. He has given his life and his soul to Manchester United, and what he did, what Jamie asked him to do, was nothing short of blasphemy.

“‘Stevie’ wasn’t supposed to tell you anything but that’s your lot for you, isn’t it—the word of a Scouser is worth less than that of a thief!”

Gerrard was seeing him out, and unfortunately was there with him when he rushed into the toilets. When they made it to the front doors of the hospital, he asked- ‘are you sure you are alright to drive?’

And Gary thought—he is a twat alright but perhaps a good man. Clearly, he had been wrong.

“Take that back.”

“And if I don’t?”

Jamie exhales sharply.

“Perhaps you should just drive me to Piccadilly.”

And to think Gary has been looking forward to today for weeks, when they could just be the two of them again. And to think everyone accuses _him_ of being the emotionally repressed party in relationships, the one who is afraid of intimacy-

“Because I insulted your friend.”

“Because- well, I don’t get it.”

“Get what, James?”

A black car pulls into the street from a driveway out of nowhere and Gary honks at it. He hates people who can’t even bother to look at the street before they turn.

“You won’t stay over for breakfast-”

“There we go with breakfast again-”

“Just shut up for once in your life and listen will you?” Jamie snaps. Gary turns to him and finds him red as that ugly jersey he wore all his life.

“Fine.”

Fine.

Jamie takes in a deep breath.

“You won’t stay over for breakfast,” he says—seriously what is it with this man and breakfast?—“but you mess up a multi-million deal for me even though I was not hurt that badly. You sing a song you hate so much it makes you throw up because I asked but you won’t visit me for a whole month after-”

Visit him- As if Gary didn’t want to visit him, but what was he supposed to do with his family or Gerrard always there? Come and have tea with Jamie’s mum? And he would have stayed overnight but-

“You never asked-”

Jamie cuts him off.

“You say you… _care_ about me but the only time we hang out is if I show up at your place earlier than we planned.”

Now, that’s not true—just because they don’t have dinner or watch movies together like teenagers in love.

“We hang out in London.”

When they are in London, they have breakfast together at the hotel and work out before the show and go for drinks after.

“We prepare for our show in London and go have drinks with the crew after,” Jamie disagrees. “That’s not hanging out.”

“Well, I was trying to protect myself! You can hardly blame me for not wanting to fall in love with _you_ of all people.”

Trafford End still sings his chant sometimes and it goes ‘Gary Neville is a red, is a red, is a red; he _hates_ Scousers’, not ‘he fucks Scousers’ and certainly not he wants to marry them. Jamie is Liverpool FC incarnate, and he is argumentative, and his accent grates the ear. He can never admit to being wrong, and doesn’t know how to back down from a challenge, and he is daft enough to climb rooftops because some despicable old lady asked him to. And that’s how you fall in love with people—having breakfast and watching films together and racing in the park at sunset. He knows because he has done it, over and over again, and it never ended well, not once. It never ended with him and the other person not clutching at the shards of a broken heart. 

“You were-” Jamie scoffs. Gary fishes for the remote to open his front gate. 

Not that his precautions mattered in the end. Not that they saved him. Because well, here they are.

Once he has parked the car, he risks a good look at Jamie, who has been stunned into silence probably for the first time in his life. Rain is tap-tap-tapping on the windshield. Their eyes meet.

“You know anyone with an ounce of good sense would be terribly insulted by that, right?” Jamie asks, but although he is still a bit flushed, that angry edge is gone from his voice. “They would have walked away?”

“ _Hobbled_ away at best in your case,” Gary corrects and gets whacked in the shoulder for his efforts, hard enough to hurt. 

So he does the only natural thing and smacks Jamie’s chest. Jamie winces either because he is still a bit bruised or because he wants the emotional high ground. But it doesn’t stop him from reaching over across over the gear stick to shove Gary. Gary shoves him back, and he doesn’t know really, when their lips find each other and he is suddenly trying to twist his body in a way he hasn’t done in years to get a better angle.

*

The sex is incredible—the perfect mix of longing and angry despite the care they need to take with Jamie’s leg—and Gary is seeing stars when he falls back onto the bed, panting and undone.

Jamie doesn’t seem to be faring any better, flushed now for a different reason, and his eyes glazed over. Sprawled across Gary’s bedsheets, his naked body is gorgeous in the soft light of the one bedside lamp they have on, his chest rising and falling in beautiful, rhythmic motions. Gary takes a moment to admire it in all its glory before he rolls onto his back and fixes his eyes on the ceiling. They must get up and clean and make dinner. In the evening, there are two matches to choose from to watch. He wants to roll and snuggle against Jamie, sweaty and sticky as they are. But he stays put. 

He meant it when he said he did what he did without an expectation of return, but for everything he admitted to tonight and for how hot the sex was, Jamie- It doesn’t matter, really.

“Neville?”

Jamie’s eyes are open now, peering at Gary, sharp as ever and hard to read. 

“Yeah?” 

Gary has said so much today that he might just opt for finding a shovel and digging himself a nice wet hole in the mud if Jamie has more painful admissions to draw out of him.

“If our places were switched right, and you were the one who fell off the roof-”

“I would have never climbed the roof in the first place. Told you before- you should have called-” 

“Right. If someone _threw_ you off a roof because you are an insufferable arse-”

“ _Hey._ ”

“Well.” Jamie smiles softly. “I would sing _Glory Glory Man United_ for you.”

Something vital twists uncomfortably in Gary’s ribcage, in a way that may or may not be a symptom of a heart attack, but he holds his ground.

“You hate Manchester United,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I do.”

“So you must really love me then, to sing it.”

Jamie smiles. “Mmm.”

And Gary thinks there is nothing they have to do that is more urgent than his need to raise himself on his elbows and kiss Jamie again.

***

He hears Jamie come in—the man is hardly a ninja right now. The clinking of his crutches against the tile floor stops and he is silent for a moment, before he asks- “what’s all this, then?”

Gary schools his face into a passing resemblance of neutrality, but it’s in vain anyway, seeing as a smile breaks out on his face the moment he turns around.

“What does it look like?” he asks, still, pretending to be put off. “Breakfast.” It’s almost ready actually. He was going to go wake Jamie up in five minutes. “I didn’t want you to go around telling people I am a bad boyfriend,” he adds as he takes out two mugs. 

Boyfriend. It makes him feel as if he is a teenager giving his A-levels. But it feels good too, in a way.

“Well.” Jamie cranes his neck to peer past him onto the counter, arms crossed at his chest, but he is grinning too. You’d have to be blind to miss the way his face lit up at the word. “The bacon does seem a bit burnt…”

“Oh does it now?”

“Yeah look, in the corner there.”

That’s what you call ‘extra crispy’ and not ‘burnt’ thank you very much. He makes a point to sigh dramatically.

“I had it right in my playing days.”

“You did, did you?”

“Not an ounce of gratitude in your lot. Haven’t you been told it’s the thought that counts?”

“The thought doesn’t un-burn the bacon, does it?”

“That’s not even a word!” Gary counters and he has missed this so much. He could probably argue with Jamie back and forth like this until the end of time. Jamie looks like he is feeling the same way.

“English language evolves all the time. Catch up,” he says, but any further reply Gary might offer is smothered by Jamie leaning in to kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright now the real question is, who will write me a companion fic that is [number of times] Gary sang GGMU and annoyed Jamie and one time Jamie sang it himself? 👀

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it friends! This fic came to me when work was incredibly busy in the fall, I made the mistake of listening to the Elvis cover of YNWA once, and then the bloody song played on repeat in my head for 2 days while I was working 13 hour days. Do you know what a terrible fate that is for a United fan D: But out of suffering art is born and here we are.
> 
> If you like the story so far, please drop me a comment below -- they are 100% what motivate me to come back and create more content. 
> 
> I am also on tumblr @blindbatalex and my inbox is always open if you want to come say hi.
> 
> Also pls admire the way I completely ignored Valencia because it did not serve my narrative purposes WHOOPS


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